Sum It Up: A Thousand and Ninety-Eight Victories, a Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective

by Pat Summitt

  Everybody was pressing, and Michelle more than anyone. I called her over, but by this time I’d learned not to meet her emotion with my own. I used the softest voice I could summon. “Look, Michelle, you’re all right, but we need you to refocus,” I said. “What I need from you is for you to calm down. We need you to finish out strong.”

  She maintained her composure, kept her head, and stayed positive. Michelle and Latina Davis went to work and ignited us with big baskets, and I had a sudden inspiration defensively. It was time for a counter. I was still known as a stubborn man-to-man coach, but I’d learned to vary our defenses, throw changeups, because sometimes it could make the other team hesitate, or even panic. I signaled our 13 Defense. It was a zone 1-3-1 set that we had hardly used all year. It sent Virginia into precisely the hesitation-panic mode I’d hoped. When the final buzzer sounded, we’d completed a 23-point swing, to win by 6 points. The final score was 52–46, and we were going to the Final Four in Charlotte.

  Where our opponent in the semifinals would be the team we’d studied all year to beat, UConn. For the last time, I decided to press Michelle’s buttons. I knew by now how much she thrived on being the central figure onstage. I said to her, “Who’s the bigger star, you or Jennifer Rizzotti? She’s the Player of the Year and won every all-American honor there is. But who are they going to be interviewing in a corner of the arena after the game? Is it going to be her? Or is it going to be you?”

  Then, right before the tip-off, I finally gave Michelle the compliment she craved. “You’ve worked hard,” I told the team, “and you’re prepared.” I looked at Michelle. “And you’ve got a great point guard and a great leader in Michelle.”

  With five minutes before tip-off, Michelle felt like I’d shot her with adrenaline.

  This woman who just beats on you all the time suddenly gives you this compliment that you’re not ready for or prepared for, at the most critical time. It worked. Hook, line, and sinker. I was in a different place in that game.

  —MICHELLE MARCINIAK

  What came next was one of the highest-quality ball games I ever participated in. For forty straight minutes, every player on both sides was at her best; big-time shots fell through the net from all over the court, led by Michelle, who was a driving, flashing force. The lead changed hands several times, no one able to get an advantage. It was a virtual deadlock—until, with five seconds to go, we went up by three. Everyone on our bench clasped hands, and I folded my arms and tried to contain a nervous jerking of my head. Just five more seconds.

  But UConn had the ball and one more shot.

  A Huskies great named Nykesha Sales drifted to the wing and faced up to the basket. Rizzotti swung a pass up the court to Sales—and then it happened—Michelle gambled and went for the steal. She missed by just a fraction of an inch and went flying by Sales, who caught the ball. Wide open, Sales nailed the three-pointer to send the game to overtime.

  I let it go. It was Michelle’s only mistake, and it was an aggressive, assertive one. As the kids jogged over to the bench, I exhaled and grimaced, repressed my frustration, and focused on the fact that we had five more minutes to play. “Ladies, we’re going to buckle down and get stops,” I said. “They are not going to outplay you, they are not going to beat you.”

  By God, they believed it, and by God, they made sure it didn’t happen. It was almost like she willed them. Pat gave them this extra level that they could kick up to. It was, They are not going to beat you right here. When Pat would lock down and really home in and convince them that they were the better team and were going to get it done, it was just an extra air, our team had an extra swagger.

  —MICKIE DEMOSS

  When I looked at Michelle, I could see she was completely zeroed in. There was an expression on her face of absolute dogged certainty: she had come too far to walk away a loser. And she flat took over in the extra period. She hit drives, drew fouls, and calmly knocked down her free throws. She had 21 points, and as she stepped to the free throw line for the last time, she had an almost smug look on her face. The final score was 88–83, Tennessee.

  I was extremely confident, and I also had a little edge because of what happened with Pat. I was like, I’m gonna show you. And that’s why she did it. Because she got out of it a championship.

  —MICHELLE MARCINIAK

  Our momentum carried over to the final against Georgia. Our life-sized mascot dog, Smokey, primed us for victory by destroying a stuffed Georgia bulldog on the court just before tip-off, spilling his insides all over the floor. That got Smokey ejected from the gym, and I protested. “It’s not our fault the dog was a cheap toy,” I said. Our players treated Georgia the same way—we won our fourth national championship by tearing Georgia apart 83–65, in front of a record TV audience for a women’s game. Everybody made huge contributions: our shooting guard Latina Davis was Most Valuable Player of the NCAA East Region, our freshman Chamique Holdsclaw made all-America.

  And Michelle Marciniak was the MVP of the Final Four.

  There were two great reconciliations in the arena that evening. As the buzzer sounded, our players exploded with joy and jumped around like they were trying to defy gravity. I fought to suppress a smile of carbonated delight as Michelle bounded over to me expectantly. She wanted the last measure of approval she’d been waiting for, and that I’d withheld for so long. I wrapped her in a hug and said, “Ohhhh, I am so proud for you.”

  Then I climbed into the stands to see my family. I embraced my husband and son and turned to the railing behind which my parents and brothers and sisters-in-law were waiting. As I did so, I experienced something similar to what the young woman I’d just released must have felt.

  Waiting for me, with outstretched arms, was my father. I moved into them, and he hugged me. I was forty-three years old, and it was the first one I’d ever gotten from him. I felt a rumbling in his chest, and then he spoke.

  “Somebody around here knows how to coach,” he said.

  I really think that at base the extremely tough, silent, demanding father combined with the give-no-quarter-to-the-baby-even-if-she-is-a-girl brothers she had to survive caused Pat to never feel safe and satisfied unless all these demons had been soundly beaten. When you are trying to talk to a deaf person, you keep raising your voice until you can be heard. Pat had to really do something to get any comment, let alone praise, from her dad.

  —R.B. SUMMITT

  That night we had a huge celebration in the lounge of our Charlotte hotel; I vaguely remember my young friend and onetime assistant coach Carolyn Peck (1993–1995) standing atop the bar and leading us in singing “Rocky Top.”

  Wish that I was on old Rocky Top, down in the Tennessee hills

  Ain’t no smoggy smoke on Rocky Top

  Ain’t no telephone bills …

  Once there was a girl on rocky top,

  Half bear the other half cat.

  Wild as a mink, sweet as soda pop,

  I still dream about that.

  My old friend Jane Clark went upstairs to change into jeans and as she got off the elevator she ran into my parents, whose room was next to hers. Jane thought Daddy was mixed up and said, “Your room is right here.”

  Daddy said, “I know that. We’re going down to the bar to party.”

  The following morning as we all staggered around trying to pack to go home, my parents came to my hotel suite to say good-bye. My father stood in the doorway, and abruptly and awkwardly, he said the words I’d been waiting forty-three years to hear.

  “Now, I love you,” he said.

  I was stunned. I looked at him as if to say, Richard? Richard Head?

  He continued, irritably. “And I don’t ever want to hear about it again.”

  I tried not to burst out laughing, or yell hallelujah. Of course Richard Head couldn’t just say, “Trish, I love you.” He had to add, “And I don’t ever want to hear about it again.” Strangely enough, I didn’t feel any great sense of relief at that moment. When I asked myself w
hy, the answer came to me readily: I already knew he loved me. My shock was not based on the words, but on the size of the step the big man had just taken toward me, the sudden relaxing of his barricade.

  For once, my father wasn’t done. He had more to say.

  “I don’t ever want to hear again that I don’t say I love you,” he said. “Or that I never hug you. Or tell you how proud I am.”

  Then he hugged me again.

  The Head family was too big for one little sofa. From left: Charles, Tommy, Kenneth, Pat, baby Linda, and my mother and father, Hazel and Richard.

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  Richard Head holds the newest addition to his log cabin family, baby Patricia Sue, his fourth child and first daughter.

  The skinny girl they called Bone, standing in front of the hay barn where we played ball.

  A hayloft on the family spread.

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  The house my father moved us to across the county line so I could play basketball. From the roof you could see the drag races.

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  Main Street Henrietta. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss it.

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  Trisha Sue Head in action at the University of Tennessee, Martin, with her hand-sewn numerals. The court was the one place I felt confident.

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  The co-captain of the 1976 U.S. Olympic team shows off her silver medal shooting form. My coach and mentor Billie Moore is behind me in a white team jacket.

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  My coaching style on the sideline was very animated, as was my early taste in plaids.

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  Carried around the court by the USA team after winning the Olympic gold medal in 1984.

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  Teasing with Lisa McGill, who was still on crutches after her serious accident. A coach’s worst nightmare wasn’t losing, it was injury.

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  Jill Rankin was the first player who made fun of me—to my face. She takes liberties in my cubbyhole office, circa 1978.

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  Mom loves her work. Writing pregame instructions with one hand, burping Tyler with the other.

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  Celebrating our first national championship under the scoreboard in 1987. It took seven Final Four losses to learn how to win one.

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  My son, Tyler Summitt, the love of my life, aged one. He attended his first practice eight days after he was born and took his first Lady Vols road trip at two weeks old.

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  Newborn Tyler attends practice, watched over by Daedra Charles, while Dena Head examines his perfect feet.

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  I made a family dinner for R.B. and Tyler every night. It was a priority no matter what the score or the season.

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  The Summitt family in our happiest days.

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  Tyler was always a part of our bench. Notice the whistle around his neck.

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  I was forty-three before I got my first hug from my father.

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  With my parents, Richard and Hazel, at an NCAA Final Four party in the 1990s.

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  With my mother on the night in 2005 when we broke the all-time record for NCAA Division I victories with 880. Tennessee honored me by naming the court The Summitt.

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  My parents in the stands at the 1998 NCAA Final Four. “That’s about the best job you ever done,” my father said.

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  Basketball took the Tennessee Lady Vols to places we could never have imagined. Visiting Westminster Cathedral, London, during a summer tournament swing overseas.

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  I dressed down Michelle Marciniak in the NCAA Sweet 16, March 24, 1994. She kept the picture on her dashboard for a year.

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  What it’s all about: Kellie Jolly and Chamique Holdsclaw receive their degrees, 1999.

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  In my prime. I loved working the sideline.

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  Holly Warlick and I have known each other so long we think exactly alike. She was the logical successor at Tennessee.

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  The Tennessee bench explodes as we get a victory over the University of Connecticut in 2005. You can see how much the rivalry meant.

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  The family model of success: Our staff embraces as the clock winds down on our 2008 national championship. From left: Nikki Caldwell, Dean Lockwood, Holly Warlick.

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  Coaching Glory Johnson with one hand tied behind my back—after fighting off a raccoon. It was a tough period: I lost my father and my marriage, and began having serious health problems.

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  My great friend Mickie DeMoss always told me what I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear.

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  Eye contact: Freshman Cierra Burdick gets the infamous piercing glare during the 2012 season.

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  Confrontation equals honesty equals performance. Calling out our players in the locker room during the 2012 season.

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  The huddle: You have sixty seconds to communicate, and they will only remember the first thing you say and the last. Coaching my last team, 2012 season.

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  Tyler Summitt, twenty-one, new assistant coach at Marquette University and all-around phenom, works the bench while his mother watches over his shoulder during the 2012–2013 season.

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  Tyler visiting his mother at home in the fall of 2012.

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  What do you think when you look at the row of trophies?

  I think about the great players that made it happen, you know.

  So when you see trophies, you see people.

  Sure.

  How good is your memory in general? Are there things you feel you should remember that you don’t about some of the championships?

  Oh, yeah. That’s why I have you.

  So you remember with prompting?

  Yes. I remember, now we talk about it.

  How’s it feel?

  Feels good.

  [Laughter]

  What about the stress? How stressful do you think the job was, when the team was down, the band is playing, everybody is screaming—

  See, I loved that. Loved it. Living in the moment. Trying to figure out who needs the ball. Who needs to box out. Who needs to be in the game. All that kind of stuff.

  You were problem solving at a mental rate that’s amazing.

  Yep.

  And it was fun?

  Oh, yeah. It’s always fun, unless you lost. And then it was hell on wheels.

  —May 25, 2012, Alys Beach, Florida, one year after diagnosis

  9

  Champion, Part II

  There were moments in my career when I thought I’d mastered the craft of coaching, but this wasn’t one of them. Out on our home court, Stanford was cutting our team to pieces like a knife and fork. I felt exposed on the sideline, embarrassed. A wide-open space of floor opened in front of me, and a Stanford player moved into it and fluttered the net with an easy jumper for what seemed like the hundredth time. The scoreboard blinked, and I flicked my eyelashes up at it.

  I turned to my staff on the sideline and said, simply, “Help me.”

  Farther down the bench our injured point guard Kellie Jolly, sitting with a damaged knee, looked surprised; she’d never heard me uncertain before. Mickie and Holly offer
ed a couple of suggestions, but we all knew the answer wasn’t on a clipboard. I shrugged as if to say, “I don’t know who’s coaching this team.” I wandered down to Tyler’s seat on the end of the bench. He just looked up at me with his six-year-old wise man’s eyes and held out his hands.